Michael Fitzmaurice (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Just one second. I wish to clarify this. Everyone is fond of exams and getting people to press buttons and answer questions. At the end of the day, there are some people driving, as Ms Verona Murphy mentioned, who are 55 years and over. Some of those people could be the best drivers in the world and be doing things right. However, they may not have had the opportunity that the witness or other people might have had of getting an education to be able to read and write very well. I have put proposals forward for the trailer licence process in order to replace this thing of putting them into the back of a lorry and pressing buttons. I have put proposals forward that the applicants would be at Mondello Park or somewhere where they can drive, turn and twist a trailer. This is why the academic side is so much about exams. There are exams for everything. They are sat down to write it down and they are made to sweat. Until the day comes that we have more of an apprentice system with people and work with them that way, we will never achieve road safety.